Citation:
Parker D, Kirkpatrick C, Figueira-Theodorakopoulou C. (2008) Infrastructure regulation and poverty reduction in developing countries: a review of the evidence and a research agenda. Quarterly Review of Economics and Finance, Volume 48, Issue 2, May 2008, pp. 177-188
Abstract:
Poverty reduction is a primary goal of development policy. In large parts of the
World people have to live on meagre incomes and have limited access to
infrastructure services, such as mains water, safe sanitation, mains power
supplies, maintained roads and telephones. In response, more and more
infrastructure provision has been opened up to private investment over the last
two decades and regulatory institutions have been introduced to protect the
public interest in the absence of state ownership. In this paper the role of
infrastructure regulation in poverty reduction is investigated drawing on the
published evidence. The conclusion is that the evidence is both patchy and
sometimes contradictory. There is mixed knowledge regarding the extent to which
regulators address poverty issues and about the results of regulatory decisions.
The paper concludes by proposing a future research agenda aimed at improving our
understanding of the ways in which infrastructure regulation impacts on poverty,
with the objective of improving actual regulatory policy in developing
economies.